The Malton School Student News Blog

Are you looking for some ideas for what to listen to on your summer holidays? Our Year 7 Student Reporter Alice Thompson has compiled a list of her favourites that are sure to get you in the holiday mood…

Our Year 7 Student Journalist Rebekah Robinson, who rides with the local hunt, gives her opinion on fox hunting…

Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, and a group of unarmed followers led by a ‘master of foxhounds’.
There are many anti-hunt people who are doing everything they can to stop hunting, however many horses have been hurt due to anti-hunt people beating horses in the hope we will stop hunting.
Fox hunting is a traditional sport in which hunters, usually on horseback, follow a pack of hunting dogs aiming at picking up the scent of a fox, chasing it and killing it. Fox hunting is illegal in England, Scotland and Wales.
Early fox hunting with packs of hounds first started in the UK in the late 1600s. Foxes were hunted to stop them from killing livestock. There was also the excitement of the ride plus the social side of hunting.
Theresa May has said she would like to make fox hunting return to the way it used to be. I strongly agree with her and think it should be the same as the 1960s.
Many people think fox hunting is bad but if we stop we will end a tradition that has been going on for a hundreds of years.

Recently, an anti-hunt protester shouted ‘Save our wildlife, kill May’ at the Prime Minister as she arrived at a event in North Wales. He carried on shouting before police grabbed him and carried him away to nearby police vans. He was later released without charge.

Many students do activities outside school. Our student journalist team caught up with squash champion Charlotte Frost in Year 8.

Year 8 student Charlotte was 12 when she started playing squash but she didn’t feel confident enough to go into a competition.

Her dad encouraged her to play against others as she was at a good level, so she entered the Wigginton Junior Championships. This was very competitive for Charlotte yet she managed to pull it off and won the Under-14 Championships.

She is very happy with her achievements. Since this success she has entered three more competitions and has loved them all! She finds the sport fun but at the same time it can be very competitive! You want to avoid her competitive mood! It’s SOOOO strong.

Charlotte said: “ The thing that made me interested in the sport is that my dad would go down to play his games and I would go with him to watch and I wanted to play. As soon as I got on court and started doing some drives I was like this is the sport for me! Ever since then I have improved every time I go on court!”

Year 7 student journalist Ben Coyle tells us about the cuts that libraries across North Yorkshire are facing and how you can help…

The libraries in North Yorkshire are facing cuts. This means that the libraries themselves may be closed. A library near where I live shut down a few years ago due to cost cutting.

Some libraries have had a good idea, they are getting volunteers and young volunteers to help out, therefore cutting the cost of staff wages. What this is doing is making libraries cheaper to run. Some libraries are also opening local council centres, such as one of the libraries near to me, Filey Library, which has recently got a lot more volunteers to keep the library open.

They have recently opened a Scarborough Borough Council ‘desk’ in the library. They have friendly staff and have quite a lot of books. They run the Summer Reading Challenge, which you can read about below. I have been going to this library for about 10 years and have got to know the staff well.

Have you ever been to your local library? Or are books something that gather dust in your house? Have you ever wanted a book, that maybe you don’t quite have enough for? Libraries are free. You can go and register, get a free card, then take out books from that library, for no amount of money.

Something in summer known as the Summer Reading Challenge is back again for 2017. Are you a great reader? Are you over 13? Go down to your local library, and over the summer holidays GET INVOLVED!

The libraries are open to young volunteers to go to the libraries and help this summer. Under 13? Still want to get involved? Join in the Summer Reading Challenge, and go to events. Enjoy the books you read. Wait a few more years, and you can help too.

All North Yorkshire libraries run the reading challenge. It takes place over the summer holidays, so if you are busy in term time, don’t worry, you can still enter. Primary school students who complete the challenge can ask to get their certificates at school, and students at secondary school who want to take part can request for it to be collected at their library. To discover more about the Summer Reading Challenge, there is some information, and more to be released on this website. https://readingagency.org.uk/

If you want to visit the online library catalogue to see if there is something of interest to you, or to join today, right now, without using your library (follow the instructions on the website) go to https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/northyorkshire/

Our Year 8 student journalist Sam Milson tells us about his recent experience helping with the lambing on his grandmother’s smallholding…

I deeply love the Easter season because of lambing time. My Grandma owns a small amount of ewes and a tup (male sheep). She puts the tup in the field so that he can mate with the ewes then she takes extra care in checking that they are lambing okay.

Some sheep need help in lambing whilst some don’t but if one needs help but doesn’t receive it, then the lamb will almost certainly die. But that’s where I come in, to help lamb the sheep. If it needs help then I will pull it out and make sure it is breathing. I also do other small jobs which matter very much.

One job that I had this year was to guard a tied up sheep. Some sheep show malevolence towards their lambs because they might smell differently if they are twins. And in this case the ewe did not like one of her lambs and was acting very maliciously towards it. Not only was that a problem but she would not let the little lamb feed. So my Grandma, being a very clever woman, put the two lambs in a tightly packed cage so that they smell the same, but also tied the ewe up when it was feeding time so that both lambs would get a sufficient amount of milk.

One problem with this was that the ewe could strangle herself, that’s why I had to watch her. And now she loves both lambs equally and protects them both the same amount!

Also, in lambing it is very expensive to buy milk powder for pet lambs and more mineral pellets for older ones and if you don’t get money back from the sales of the lambs then you lose a considerable amount of money.

That is the main reason why it is such a disappointment when a lovely lamb doesn’t make it. In one case that we have had this year, a little lamb had half formed in the ewe’s body, but only half, so when she was ready to lamb she was struggling. We got it out, it was a massive disappointment to find out that it was a lost cause and a loss of a cute little lamb.

So I suppose we have our ups and downs in lambing but it’s all worth it in the long run. The money is an added extra I suppose because the thing we enjoy the most are the sleepless nights, the enjoyable feeling of new life and helping the ewe to raise such adorable animals.

Year 11 Student journalists Ellie Smith and Beth Forbes have been looking into feminism and why actress Emma Watson is a true modern day feminist…

What is a feminist? Someone who resents all men and vouches for an uprising of the superiority of women? No, they are not.

A feminist is, by googled definition, ‘someone who supports the advocacy of women’s right on the ground of the equality of the sexes’. Feminism is not a dirty word. Feminism is not inclusive to women.

There is inequality between genders across the world, less so in westernised countries but factors such as the pay gap still remain a problem. The average pay gap is estimated to be a 59% difference between men and women’s wages; this gap is thought to take 170 years (calculated by the World Economic Forum) to close completely.

Feminists also protest for the equal right of reproduction, particularly abortion. Women have a moral right to decide what to do with their bodies and the banning of abortion puts their health at risk by forcing them to go to illegal/informal abortionists.

Emma Watson has recently been in the news with her Vanity Fair photoshoot. Posing with nothing but a white, crotchet shawl, she faces backlash from other feminists who called her a hypocrite and that she was ‘going against’ feminism ideals.

She replied to the hate saying, “Feminism is about having a choice. It’s not a stick with which to beat other women. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, and it’s about equality”.

Feminism is a synonym of equality.

Emma Watson’s recent appearance in Disney’s live remake of their animated classic; Beauty and the Beast, saw her take centre stage as the protagonist Belle- a young woman living in a provincial town who longs for adventure in the great wide somewhere, but is constantly trailed by egotistic Gaston who wants her hand in marriage.

When Belle’s father, Maurice is taken captive by a Beast, Belle sacrifices her freedom so her Father can return to the traditional French village. After days spent with the Beast she considered feeling something that wasn’t there before.

Gaston soon hears about Belle being held hostage and rallies the villagers to kill the Beast. After a tense fight between the Beast and Gaston, both fall but [spoiler] as Belle mourns his apparent death, it is revealed he is Price Adam. It is a tale as old as time.

Emma took the role of Belle, after declining the role of the protagonist in Cinderella because “Belle is a true heroine, in the original you don’t get much sense of Belle, who she is before she meets Beast, I wanted to create a backstory”. Belle challenges the gender roles of the film, being the only woman who was literate. She tries to teach a girl to read, but the villagers disrupt her because they don’t believe girls should get an education.

Belle is a feminist and the village represent the general population who are unsure if they should follow society’s gender roles. ie Male superiority.

Emma also mirrors Belle’s love of books, where she recently placed books written by “powerful” women around the London Underground to inspire commuters to read.

To finalise, Emma Watson is a pioneer of women’s rights and feminism both on-screen and in reality.